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The chances of a comprehensive fiscal package coming together during the lame duck session are “slim to none,” he said.

Still, he said he believes there’s a 70 percent to 80 percent chance that lawmakers will use the post-election session to agree on a deficit-reduction framework that requires Congress to cut a deal on specific spending cuts and revenue increases within a certain time frame — hopefully next year.

“I would hope it would be less than two years,” he said. “I would hope it would be a 2013 phenomena.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that he also expects Congress to come together on a fiscal package with a “real trigger” that would require additional work next year.

Though lawmakers from both parties deride the Tax Code as a tangled mess, they are often cautious when it comes to identifying specific breaks in the code that they would toss in order to pay for a simplified system. Warner said it doesn’t have to be that hard.

He argued that if lawmakers can’t reach agreement on, say, eliminating the mortgage interest deduction, they can limit the amount of overall tax benefits that a taxpayer can claim.

“There are ways you could make it a very progressive tax reform if you’re not able to get to the decision point on all of the tax expenditure items,” he said.

President Barack Obama has proposed capping charitable deductions at 28 percent — but would apply that ceiling only to taxpayers in the top income brackets.

Warner was a member of the so-called Gang of Six, a group of lawmakers from both parties that proposed a $3.7 trillion deficit-reduction plan last year that included a mix of spending cuts. Other groups, such as the Simpson-Bowles panel, have proposed a similar framework while differing on some specifics.

Ultimately, this is the type of deal that must come together, Warner said.

“There’s no serious analysis that says you can get this fixed on one side of the balance sheet,” he said, referring to Republican efforts to reduce the deficit through spending cuts alone.

Readers' Comments (2)

The fix is in according to Senators Mark Warner, Chuck Schumer and the Democratic team. Instead of eliminating wasteful tax expenditures which drag the economy congress will simply limit the deduction the high earners can deduct. Each side will keep their favorite loopholes, collect contributions from their political supporters and the poor and middle class which have no loopholes (even if they are lucky enough to have a job) will suffer. Tjhe Democratic tax reform will not create jobs or reverse the steep decline in income and wealth for the bottom 50% (who have only $3 for every $10 they had in 1995.

The only fair and effective solution is to replace job killing payroll taxes with a 2% tax on net wealth and use the extra funds to lower the income tax rate to 8%. Read about the 2-4-8 Tax Blend at TaxNetWealth.com.